Traditionally movies, television programs, commercials, sporting events and most other forms of video data have been recorded using film-based systems. Although a variety of technical improvements in such systems have allowed film to remain the primary media for cinematography for the last hundred years, the advent of digital cinematography has started a gradual shift away from film and towards digital media.
Digital cinematography offers a number of advantages over film-based cinematography, not the least of which are smaller, lighter weight cameras and the ability to record both audio and video data onto a single media. From a production stand-point, of even greater importance is the ability to immediately play back a shoot rather than waiting for the film to be developed. Furthermore, since most films are currently edited on a digital system, shooting on digital video rather than film eliminates the lengthy telecine process required to convert film stock to digital video that can then be digitally edited. Lastly, hard disk drives or other digital media can hold considerably more footage than film at a fraction of the cost.
In order to take advantage of the shift to digital cinematography, a variety of technologies have undergone recent advances. To date, these advances have occurred primarily in the areas of cameras (e.g., resolution, improved dynamic range, calibration, frame rate, compression techniques, etc.) and editing hardware/software. However another area that requires improvement in order to garner wide spread acceptance is in the area of recording media. What is needed is a digital media device that is compact and light weight, thus allowing it to be easily transported and mounted directly to a camera, as well as being robust, compatible with a variety of camera systems (e.g., high definition, standard definition, etc.), capable of interfacing with both cameras and editing hardware, and user friendly. The present invention provides such a media system.